Moral Issues in Special Education. Robert F. Ladenson
to love those who love and care for us; to grieve; to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger;
(6) Practical reason—being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one’s life;
(7) Affiliation—
(a) being able to live with and toward others; to recognize and show concern for other human beings; to engage in various forms of social interaction, to be able to imagine the situation of another,
(b) having the social bases of self-respect and nonhumiliation; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others;
(8) Other species—being able to live with concern for, and in relation to, animals, plants, and the world of nature;
(9) Play—being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities;
(10) Control over one’s environment—
(a) Political—being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life,
(i) having the right of political participation,
(ii) protection of free speech and association;
(b) Material—being able to hold property (both land and movable goods, and having property rights on an equal basis with others)
(i) having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others,
(ii) having freedom from unwarranted search and seizure.
In the context of American society, an appropriate K–12 education—as understood in terms of the two-pronged analysis developed in this chapter—enhances all ten of Nussbaum’s central human capabilities. Such education is an integral component of three of them: (4) senses, imagination, and thought; (6) practical reason; and (10) (a) control over one’s political environment. Nussbaum maintains that her ten central human capabilities “give shape and content” to a conception of human dignity that could both “gather broad cross-cultural agreement” and ground a “minimum account of social justice.”29
Given the wide range of Nussbaum’s ten capabilities, there is room for substantial debate and discussion about their implications for the requirements of social justice in diverse nations that differ respectively in their overall levels of material resources (e.g., the United States and Bangladesh). But from the standpoint of the capabilities account of social justice, it is readily apparent that in American society, children in Group A have a moral right to be provided an appropriate K–12 education.30
Moderate Libertarianism
According to libertarianism the primary responsibility of government is to avoid violating the moral rights of individual persons.31 For libertarians, the right to liberty (freedom) stands out as the most important concept for understanding a government’s responsibility and the limits of morally legitimate governmental authority.32
The right to liberty, according to libertarianism, has overwhelming moral force; it entails a strong presumption against any interference with an individual’s liberty by actions of other individuals and especially by actions of government. Governmentally imposed limitations upon liberty of individuals, for libertarians, carry an exceptionally high burden of moral justification.
Within a framework of agreement upon the above ideas, however, there is an array of different outlooks—philosophically and politically significant—among libertarians. Two outlooks within this array, which one may refer to respectively as “moderate” and “radical” libertarianism, disagree fundamentally over a crucial issue concerning application of the idea of a moral right to liberty (freedom) with respect to an appropriate K–12 education. This issue will be discussed immediately below.
Moderate libertarians believe that a small number of instances meet the (exceptionally heavy) burden of moral justification for government limitations upon liberty of individuals. Some moderate libertarians regard the following argument as cogent:33
(i) Individuals have a moral right to liberty, in large part for the reason that liberty is needed to have a reasonable chance for success in seeking self-fulfillment.34
(ii) There are other needed prerequisites, besides liberty, however, for an individual to have a reasonable chance for success in seeking self-fulfillment.
(iii) An example of another needed prerequisite besides liberty, relative to the United States, is an appropriate K–12 public education.
(iv) Therefore, American children have a moral right to receive an appropriate K–12 education.
By acknowledging the cogency of the above argument, a moderate libertarian does not thereby forfeit her libertarian bona fides, provided that she remains firmly committed to the principle that governmental limitation upon individual liberty carries a heavy burden of moral justification. However, she combines this basic libertarian commitment with realistic assessment of the prerequisites for a reasonable chance to achieve success in seeking self-fulfillment. And she tries to make reasonable judgments in regard to education and social policy accordingly.35
Radical libertarians, in contrast to moderate libertarians, reject the notion that any circumstances whatsoever justify governmental limitations upon individual liberty. Radical libertarians self-identify as (philosophical) anarchists, and as such they reject the idea that governments, even if democratic, have any morally legitimate, let alone morally required, functions.36
Against the idea that government in the United States has a moral responsibility to assure that children receive an appropriate education, radical libertarians maintain the following: if government ceased to exist, such assurance would be achieved entirely without governmental action through a combination of the workings of a (completely) free market economy and voluntary philanthropic contributions.37
As noted earlier in the discussion of utilitarianism, many would regard the above radical libertarian position as unrealistically optimistic about whether American children—even children in poverty and children with disabilities—could be assured an appropriate education if supporting governmental action were withdrawn entirely.
There is, however, another strong criticism. The radical libertarian stance is not, and in the nature of the case cannot be, grounded in well-confirmed observations of educational practices in societies organized on radical libertarian lines. (There aren’t any.) Accordingly, one has to regard the stance as speculation about which radical libertarians have great confidence, while others (e.g., utilitarians, Rawlsians, capabilities theorists, and moderate libertarians) are highly dubious.
Imagine, however, that a radical libertarian society somehow came into existence but that the above speculation inarguably turned out wrong. Under this hypothesized circumstance radical libertarians would have only two alternatives. First, they could abandon their stance, and become moderate libertarians apropos education. Second, they could decline to do so and instead double down with an unqualified denial that American children have a moral right to receive an appropriate K–12 education.
With regard to the second of the above alternatives, radical libertarians might argue as follows: “It would be wonderful if, in the case of every American child, the child’s parents or some other private party concerned with the child’s well-being assured that the child receives an appropriate K–12 education. The idea, however, that government in the United States has the ultimate moral responsibility to do so is both badly misguided and morally unjustified.”38
Taking the above stance is one thing, justifying it is another. How would radical libertarians respond, for example, to the moderate libertarian justification (set forth above) of American children’s moral right to receive an appropriate education? Moderate libertarians would say the argument simply traces out logical implications of ideas highly cohesive with, if not central to, libertarianism—ideas about why individual liberty is so immensely valuable. From this standpoint, denial that American children have a moral right to receive an appropriate K–12 education